Earth Day: 9 Films That Will Change the Way You Think About the World

This Earth Day consider adding a few of these these mainstream and indie documentaries to your must-see list.

In an apocalyptic 2012, is there a better time than Earth Day to remind ourselves just how lucky we are to be spinning through the void of space on this life-giving rock? From rapidly acidifying oceans and shortsighted deforestation to perpetually pollutive wars and the propping up of obsolete markets, Earth is taking killer blows that we’re going to seriously regret delivering.

Like the worsening news about the future of our planet, the following films have recently arrived in short bursts. They deal out often visually spectacular but emotionally devastating losses of sea ice, as well as the unheard voices of nations beneath the rising waves. Some consider the double-edged sword of technological innovation, whose parasitic profit motive has compromised its earthly host. Others analyze those natural resources that so-called progress continues to exhaust in search of the new shiny.

But these Earth Day offerings are timely snapshots, because the slow-dawning realization that we’ve unplugged from a lethal, consensual hallucination can be screened far and wide in our pop-cultural productions. You’ve seen it in the post-apocalyptic allegory of The Hunger Games, last seen slaying the box office, whose forthcoming king will no doubt be The Hobbit, which takes place in a bucolic Middle-Earth bouncing its way toward an epochal world war. You can throw in Game of Thrones’ murderous power grabs, Don Draper’s advertising fetishism and plenty more.

But the mainstream and indie documentaries below pull away that fictional prism for convincing think pieces on sustainability and survival. Thanks to the death of appointment viewing, you’ll get to watch them anytime, most likely on any platform, sometime this year.